Portuguese food, Cadbury World, Fabric Nightclub, Stonehenge: Just a few days in the life of a Londoner

**I apologize that I haven't updated in the last few days. This weekend was crazy busy and I feel like I am just now catching up. This one is going to be a long update. You'll probably need at least a half hour to read it all. Not kidding. Hope you are ready, here goes...

Friday 22 October 2010
I had creative writing class in the morning and then joined a friend for lunch in her dorm. We ate with a "friend" of hers Ollie. They met last week at the campus pub at Marylebone campus downtown. He is basically the most ridiculous person I have ever met. She's only met him one other time, that's why I used the term "friend" because they don't really know each other. Anyway, they met at Intermission bar (the campus pub). He was with his friend Vince, but later my friend Christine found that wasn't actually his real name. It's Lawrence. When Ollie met Vince he misunderstood his name and just called him Vince instead of Lawrence. They have been friends for four years and he never changed it back after being corrected. Ollie was going to Amsterdam for the weekend with Vince and some other guys. Vince bought the ticket without even having a passport. Ollie asked us to join if Vince couldn't go, but he is just too ridiculous and we had weekend plans anyway. He came up to Christine's apartment to cook his frozen pizza he bought the night before. It wasn't frozen anymore, just an enormous glob of dough. Yuck. He left the pizza sitting out all night but I guess he just really didn't want to waste it so he ate it anyway. Again, yuck. During dinner he told us this story about how some of his mates were boating off the coast of Australia and one of his friends just fell overboard. His friend went to the upper deck of the boat to enjoy a beer but when his friends came upstairs to get him, his beer was on the table but he was not. This happened two weeks ago and no one knows where this guy is. Isn't that crazy?! Ollie is a ridiculous person.

After lunch, I was exhausted from the week so I just came back and took a much-needed afternoon nap.

For dinner I joined a group of friends from the flat upstairs for a birthday dinner of a girl in one of my classes, Hannah. She's American and from Denver, CO. She turned 21 on Saturday and organized a group dinner to celebrate! We went to this Portuguese restaurant near our campus called Nando's. It was the most delicisou meal! I will definitely be back. Soon. I ordered a chicken on pita bread, chips (fries) and a South African white wine. I figured I'd never had South African wine before so why not?  The chicken was so spicy and flavorful. I am hooked and can't wait to eat it again!

After dinner we hung out in their flat upstairs for a little while. It was fun getting to talk to different British people. One girl was from Ireland but the other 10(ish) people were all from England. It was a very relaxed and fun evening.

Saturday 23 October 2010
Saturday was the much anticipated day of touring Cadbury World! Elizabeth, Christine and I were very excited and had been looking forward to this adventure since the about the second weekend when we heard about it. We all share a love for food so we expected this to be a great adventure. It was about a 1.5 hour train ride to get to Birmingham, UK.

On the train I had a very strange, insightful and frustrating encounter with a foreign, dark skinned man.  He asked me a few questions about the book (a new Jodi Picoult novel) I was reading. I knew when he started making small talk I knew he wasn't from England. I could tell by his strained English accent and that Londoners don't ever make small talk. Ever. He'd asked where I was from (I'm fairly certain he could tell by my accent I was American) but not in a creepy, invading way just in a curious, inquistive way. We chatted and I told him about where I grew up and I asked where he was from. He said he was from Pakistan and completing his PhD just outside London. He's studying Sociology and Anthropology. I found it interesting that as soon as I learned where he was from, I immediately put an imaginary guard up around me. I think as Americans, the media feeds so much negative eneregy to us about Middle Easteners, more than we even realize. I had no idea who this man was, I had no right to secretely judge him based on extremely biased knowledge of a select few people from his part of the world. I had no idea, I had those kind of prejudices until talking this man. It wasn't like I was treating him poorly or behaving differently towards him than any other stranger, it was just that in my mind I was thinking about all the negative messages and imges I have seen and read about people of the Middle East.  Right now, I can't think of a single news article I have read or watched highlighting a Middle Eastern person in a postive light.

Anyway, we kept talking and I asked him he had ever visited the United States before. He said no. Then he proceeded to tell me all these stereotypes he had about American people and how Americans are "hasty" and "don't take time to enjoy the process of life" because we are only driven by deadline and being successful. Also, I'd like to mention he referenced movies as evidence of our culture. He made a comparison to how he would cook potatoes. He went on and on how he would slice them twice, and season them, and cook them to a golden brown. Then he described how Americans would cook them; quickly chopping them and heating them only to scarf the food down. He said he "lived like an American" for two years of his life and made a lot of money but lost a lot of other things in his life, relationships, happiness and personality. He could not understand how and why people live in our culture without missing out on other parts of life. This man also made a point that two weeks ago a journalist was held hostage in Afganistan. American troops were in charge of rescuing her. This man told me Americans couldn't wait any longer and threw a grenade at the holding area to try to set her free. This grenade killed her. He said, that is the British troops were there, this would not have happened because they would have negotiated and worked out the problem instead of just reacting. With each story he told, I got more and more defensive. I was appaulled that he could make such broad generalizations about 300 million people, not to mention the most powerful country in the world, and not think twice about offending me. Granted, I had thoughts about his culture and what his life is like in the Middle East, but I would NEVER have suggested I actually knew anything about what it was like to live there.

I did stick up for myself and my country. I was not about to let this wiseguy, hotshot deface our American lifestyle. Or least, not without letting my opinion be heard. I told him that just because American culture was different, does not mean it is wrong. I said that is the American mindset. You know what you want and then you get it. You don't waste time. Americans want the end result. We want success and achievement. I also told him that just because we are so driven does not mean we miss out on other parts of life. It means we are adapted to live in that way. Not all Americans are workaholics who spend 70+ hours in the office climbing the corporate ladder.  As the conversation continued my blood was boiling with anger that a person could harness such judgemental thoughts about such a wide variety of people and speak them aloud.

After I left the train, I was so relieved to be out of that conversation. He was not being hateful. He was speaking matter of factly, like this was such a widely accepted view. Looking back on this converstation, it was very enlightening for me to see how other countries view the United States and also to see where my perspectives are for people of other countries.

Ok. After all of that, we finally made it to Bournville (just outside of Birmingham, UK) to Cadbury World! The anticipation was so great as we stepped into the factory. The streets were literally lined with purple fences. Honestly, I was expecting lickable wallpaper and a moat of liquid chocolate. Those were a bit too high. It was an under-impressive attraction with bad 1990s movies and strange scenery. I think as Ameicans we have such a high expectation in the entertainment instrusty that we want everything to be over the top and extravagant. I was expecting something comprable Disney World and instead I got somthing like Indiana Beach.

I did learn a couple things about Cadbury though. The town was literally built around the factory. The owners built housing for employees, athletic facilities, markets, etc. Cadbury is the leading chocolate in the UK.  and was founded nearly 200 years ago.

It was still a fun day because I was with great people. We just laughed it off because it was once again not what we were ready for. Everytimg this sort of thing happens, we say it's because "we are not in America any more, everything is different." The first several rooms were just bad movies from wayyy too long ago. Only one room was an actual factory but it was basically two conveyors belts moving already wrapped chocolate bars to the other side of the room. We did get 4 chocolates out of the deal though, which was utterly delicious. Soo good. The last room we explored we got liquid milk chocolate in a cup with out choice of topping. I choose marshmallows; the combination was divine. I am glad we went because if we didn't we would have been disappointed that we left London without checking it out.

Getting off the train was so exciting!

 This was the extent of the factory that we saw.

We got to write our names in chocolate. Big whoop.

At the end of the museum, you could get your photo taken and be turned into a virtual chocolate. I didn't wait to do it, just observed people spazzing about it.

See what I mean about the streets being lined in purple??

After Cadbury World we had a few hours to kill in Birmingham. We hit up the local markets, which were considerably cheaper than ones in London. Here is a few pictures from Birmingham.

Saturday night Christine and I went to another mega nightclub in downtown London, Fabric. It was so packed, you had to squeeze and wedge your way through people to move at all in this place. It was a multi-story building with more rooms than you can count. Everywhere looked the same in this place so it was really easy to get turned around. We we tried to leave, we seriously tried 3 different doors before they would actually let us exit. It was actually really frustrating. I would not really want to go back there again, just so crowded and the music was nothting special. I am glad we went, because, again, if we would have lived here for three months and never gone, I would have been bummed.

Sunday 24 October 2010

Sunday was my first true adventure by myself. I bought a tour bus ticket to go to Stonehenge. Our study aborad program is going together at the end of November, but I will be in Switzerland! so I won't be able to attend. I figued it was a pretty good trade. I really wanted to see it, since it is one of the wonders of the world. It was about a two hour bus ride to get to the site. Of course, I slept nearly the entire way. Just the way I like it. When we drove up to the sight it was surreal to see the giant stones. Sunday was another one of those, "Wow, I can't believe I am actually doing this" moments. I'd seen pictures in textbooks a hundred times and now I was getting to experience it with my own eyes. We had about an hour to walk around the sight and we were supplied with an audio guide. I tried to listen and learn the background of the structure, but it was too much monotone speaking to focus. I did catch a few of the main points though.

• created over 5,000 years ago
• an estimated 30 million hours of labor to complete
• part of the structure lines up perfectly to where the sun is at midday on the longest day of the year in the summer
• on this day the shadow of the sun makes a straight line through the circle
• it's believe that some of the 4 ton stones were dragged from Wales to be used for this monument
• it's unknown for the actual use was but some believe it was an enormous calender, a burial site, or worship ground

•